Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

Pick a challenge, fire up Vim, and show us what you got.

Changelog, Rules & FAQ, updates: @vimgolf, RSS.

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$ gem install vimgolf
$ vimgolf setup
$ vimgolf put [challenge ID]

Played Challenges

Satisfy the go linter - 2063 entries

You just came up with this briliant go vars package. But dang, you forgot to add comments to the exported variables. Can you add a comment over each variable with a TODO-placeholder?

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #253 / 419
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add quotes to ansible playbook - 838 entries

You created an ansible playbook, but forgot to add quotes. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #201 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 1
xrandr outputs and dashes - 624 entries

uh oh, different video drivers identify display outputs with more dashes. Quick, need to change this xrandr script!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #189 / 205
  • Number of attempts: 2
From a Thunderlink to a Markdown link - 712 entries

ThunderLinks are durable hyperlinks to specific email messages generated from Thunderbird in HTML format. Leverage the power of vim to make them suitable for a markdown-formatted file.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #81 / 159
  • Number of attempts: 4
Simple, Practical, and Common - 33100 entries

Simple things we do all the time should be able to be done with very few keystrokes, but sometimes I find something I need to do makes me go, "There MUST be a better way." This challenge is just a simple movement and entering text at a certain place.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #477 / 7301
  • Number of attempts: 18
Swap values - 4500 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #887 / 1247
  • Number of attempts: 7
prepend * to every non-blank line - 6096 entries

Prepend an asterisk to every non-blank line in the input file.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #434 / 1489
  • Number of attempts: 5
One number per line - 18480 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #38 / 3811
  • Number of attempts: 6
Quote modules - 1023 entries

Complete golang import statement.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Position: #106 / 262
  • Number of attempts: 4
Swap values inside brackets - 2441 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #227 / 564
  • Number of attempts: 8
V to the i - 4650 entries

Input is 99 V's. Output is 100 i's.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #379 / 1863
  • Number of attempts: 5
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 295 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #46 / 66
  • Number of attempts: 2
Add string initializers to an enum - 834 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #116 / 245
  • Number of attempts: 4
Add semicolons - 10716 entries

Simply add a semicolon at the end of each line

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #1400 / 3022
  • Number of attempts: 1
Bad Copy Syntax - 1950 entries

Copy should be from right to left, but sometimes you type it wrong.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #155 / 501
  • Number of attempts: 9
Split line with dots - 2113 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #224 / 625
  • Number of attempts: 6
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 3480 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #548 / 1127
  • Number of attempts: 1
Com(m)a Trouble - 3496 entries

Someone was real stupid when placing his commas. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #327 / 784
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 7725 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #276 / 1844
  • Number of attempts: 10
Triangular Numbers - 88 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #20 / 25
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1453 entries

from: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/6w5pfa/crosspost_from_remacs_how_would_you_do_this_in_vim/

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #43 / 372
  • Number of attempts: 5
From argument to object - 1441 entries

This task typifies those programmers endure while coding. This C-family pseudocode needs a function argument to be repurposed as an object call. Simply search and replace? Repeat a pattern of edits?

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #74 / 441
  • Number of attempts: 3
Every other line - 2856 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #487 / 691
  • Number of attempts: 3
Copy three lines - 2824 entries

If the site is up (by some miracle), make the text under every header identical.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #84 / 630
  • Number of attempts: 7
Array propagate - 318 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Position: #71 / 114
  • Number of attempts: 2
Extract argument from function - 2267 entries

The aim is to see if you can do some refactoring very fast.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #195 / 736
  • Number of attempts: 3
Start coding format - 136 entries

I used to start coding with following format: int main(){ -(cursor here) }

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #56 / 66
  • Number of attempts: 6
Search and Replace 0 - 4743 entries

Replace every instance of 'aaa' with 'xaaax'.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #833 / 1572
  • Number of attempts: 4
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 526 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 33
  • Position: #45 / 123
  • Number of attempts: 3
Number Sort - 299 entries

sort the list of newline-separated numbers incrementally. Numbers are in the range 1 to 1000, with 500 missing

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #39 / 159
  • Number of attempts: 1
comment and uncomment code inline - 1037 entries

It's very useful to be able to comment out a block of code in a quick edit. And likewise to uncomment the code. This operation often involves multi-line stanzas and even large blocks. With just line-wise navigation and insert mode this would cost you about 4 keystrokes per line. Master this hole of VimGolf and you'll quickly drop your key count in day to day Vim as well.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #85 / 305
  • Number of attempts: 3
Flip the bit - 113 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #56 / 66
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 11283 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #641 / 4140
  • Number of attempts: 5
Team names - 1790 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #82 / 575
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make HTML List - 997 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #146 / 265
  • Number of attempts: 2
Todo list specification - 368 entries

The every item on the todo list must be done today. Modify the list to reflect that.

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 37
  • Position: #60 / 169
  • Number of attempts: 5
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 921 entries

A novice Python using prints Hello World! and a pro shows him different way. Using vim to get into pro style from novice, win the challenge.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 41
  • Position: #68 / 359
  • Number of attempts: 4
For all cases. - 131 entries

In this case... change it! :) Watch the line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #54 / 94
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 247 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #69 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 2
Missing Library and a Typo - 838 entries

I forgot to add a c library, please add it for me. Also I'm bad at typing so fix my typo too.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #110 / 206
  • Number of attempts: 4
Basic renumbering - 5486 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #442 / 1243
  • Number of attempts: 13
Adam's challenge - 928 entries

Change both normal to bold and 4 by 2. Adam Wathan challenge this on twitter . He did it in 11 keystrokes on Sublime.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #110 / 261
  • Number of attempts: 2
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 820 entries

Get rid of the '%' symbols and shift the decimal place. This is the easier version - all the columns line up.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #176 / 280
  • Number of attempts: 2
Nesting SASS - 257 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #35 / 91
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fun With The Diagonal - 99 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #57 / 76
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 7627 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #715 / 2067
  • Number of attempts: 4
Free hyphen! - 156 entries

Just like "Inner hyphens", but I'm giving you a free hyphen to play with. Will your solution be any different?

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #74 / 84
  • Number of attempts: 1
Paragraph sort - 421 entries

My large herbivorous mammals, Vim commands, and POSIX utilities need to be sorted separately.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #13 / 122
  • Number of attempts: 5
Paragraph breaks - 497 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #147 / 163
  • Number of attempts: 2
comments galore - 982 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #181 / 414
  • Number of attempts: 4
Mirrored text - 163 entries

backward and forward, and long enough to be challenging

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #20 / 69
  • Number of attempts: 7
Scrambled numbers - 775 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #8 / 181
  • Number of attempts: 9
Align commas - 1046 entries

There are 15,000 aligning challenges on vimgolf.com, and they're all exactly the same. I hope this one is a little different.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #111 / 238
  • Number of attempts: 2
Generate a list of numbers - 282 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #77 / 135
  • Number of attempts: 2
One to Ten - 2122 entries

Generate the sequence of numbers from 1 to 10, one number per line. Inspired by this Reddit thread: https://redd.it/ak4it2

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #405 / 649
  • Number of attempts: 3
Delete to the end of the current line - 718 entries

Delete to the end of the current line, but keep the character under the cursor.

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #221 / 352
  • Number of attempts: 1
Remove quotes after first field - 332 entries

Remove the quotes around each field except for the first field.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #54 / 83
  • Number of attempts: 1
move titles next to url, in quotes - 496 entries

had trouble with something similar

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #88 / 130
  • Number of attempts: 6
Array transposition - 2321 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #94 / 434
  • Number of attempts: 11
Assign numbers to fields - 94 entries

You are given a list of space-separated strings. Add an increasing numeric prefix to each one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #22 / 53
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mirror Symmetry - 787 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Position: #78 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 6
Swap assigned value - 577 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #88 / 239
  • Number of attempts: 2
From A to B - 562 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #19 / 154
  • Number of attempts: 5
Collect List - 4212 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #217 / 1176
  • Number of attempts: 5
camel riding - 757 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #138 / 271
  • Number of attempts: 4
Logging with key - 299 entries

Sometimes it is better to log with meaningful key

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #21 / 85
  • Number of attempts: 8
Space out the alphabet - 1602 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #82 / 436
  • Number of attempts: 11
Mute the second method of this script - 444 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #124 / 236
  • Number of attempts: 1
Test everything! - 152 entries

... and build the desired input data structure. Transform a list of values into a non-trivial format.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Position: #9 / 49
  • Number of attempts: 12
Condensed Cases - 773 entries

Apple's new programming language, Swift, allows two style of case statements: 1) one Enum case on each line, or 2) multiple Enum cases on a single line. Convert the following from the first case (no pun intended) to the second type.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #51 / 238
  • Number of attempts: 8
Happy TvvO - 394 entries

Don’t forget the past, learn from it. Happy New Year.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #129 / 196
  • Number of attempts: 2
I forgot quotes - 15840 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Position: #405 / 4133
  • Number of attempts: 8
Replace Parameter with Explicit Methods - 61 entries

Implementing the methods of a Java Interface

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 38
  • Position: #10 / 25
  • Number of attempts: 5
-a-b-c- - 3142 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #345 / 1120
  • Number of attempts: 2
Count both ways - 985 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #44 / 347
  • Number of attempts: 4
Neither Fizz nor Buzz - 223 entries

Not your regular increment macro! The gaps are tricky.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Position: #26 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 2
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1107 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 30
  • Position: #209 / 292
  • Number of attempts: 2
Don't know what this is - 1959 entries

Replace contents of brackets with matching number of spaces. Don't ask what the format's supposed to be.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #209 / 574
  • Number of attempts: 3
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 10564 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #963 / 3646
  • Number of attempts: 3
attr_aligner - 3403 entries

Two attr keywords. Two separate indentations. Align the colons.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Position: #205 / 686
  • Number of attempts: 11
Letter case trickery - 1580 entries

This file is in a downright esoteric format, consisting of hexadecimal numbers, non-hexadecimal keywords, and "Z" indicating end-of-line. Make the hexadecimal numbers lowercase.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #20 / 506
  • Number of attempts: 8
quotes inside quotes - 3077 entries

taken from tip 85 of the very good book 'Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought' ! I'd be interested what people use :)

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 17
  • Position: #927 / 1057
  • Number of attempts: 1
Words in parens - 12788 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #675 / 3930
  • Number of attempts: 9
Hole-in-one - 985 entries

Lets take this golf thing literally.. Drive off the tee into the hole, and of course you don't strike the ball completely clean.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 19
  • Position: #182 / 300
  • Number of attempts: 3
Word frequency alignment - 258 entries

You've got to align the second column, but the spacing is inconvenient and there are nasty tabs in the way. If you're a "real Vim ninja," this could be very quick indeed...

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Position: #102 / 151
  • Number of attempts: 6
Harder than "abcd > a b c d" - 76 entries

Not as easy as the last challenge. This time, just one space between a and b, up to 25 spaces between y and z. (Removed some lines; diff was too long.)

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 22
  • Position: #20 / 39
  • Number of attempts: 1
A simple change - 429 entries

Just change the numbers in the most efficient way ...

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Position: #117 / 184
  • Number of attempts: 5
The name of the game - 638 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #231 / 350
  • Number of attempts: 2
Alphabet soup - 402 entries

Create a column of all alphabet characters organized in a funky way

  • Best score: 25
  • Best player score: 47
  • Position: #94 / 98
  • Number of attempts: 2
Vertical Limit - 2389 entries

transform a succession of one word lines to a an array of strings

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 26
  • Position: #466 / 724
  • Number of attempts: 5
Switch function arguments - 2002 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #146 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 7
Remove noise from HTTP log - 668 entries

This piece of log (from the year 2000) contains some irrelevant data. We only want to see the HTTP method and resource.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #119 / 264
  • Number of attempts: 5
switch variable - 4993 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Position: #630 / 1722
  • Number of attempts: 5
Make it more readable - 1928 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Position: #301 / 635
  • Number of attempts: 4
Numbering a List - 1845 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #450 / 634
  • Number of attempts: 3
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1194 entries

Rubyists talk about being cutting edge but how many are using 1.9 in production? Time to convert those verbose 1.8 hashes in to symbolic, succinct 1.9 beauties!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #167 / 392
  • Number of attempts: 9
A Simple One - 971 entries

Here is a very simple one - just to illustrate/introduce a vim feature that some people seem to miss...

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Position: #468 / 632
  • Number of attempts: 1
Table Reshuffle - 365 entries

Fix the column order in this table... also append the new 'username' column.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Position: #60 / 132
  • Number of attempts: 1
Increment, increment, increment.... - 606 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Position: #329 / 385
  • Number of attempts: 1
Context insensitive completion 0 - 486 entries

Buried in the lines you're not supposed to add is the line "Add this line!" Add that line to the top of the file.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 8
  • Position: #136 / 228
  • Number of attempts: 2
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 443 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Position: #135 / 227
  • Number of attempts: 3
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 3103 entries

Convert tabs to spaces, strip empty lines and trailing whitespace.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 23
  • Position: #306 / 689
  • Number of attempts: 7
Simple text editing with Vim - 11862 entries

Make the pairs of lines match up by making each second line same as first

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Position: #418 / 3471
  • Number of attempts: 5

Contributed Challenges

Alphabet soup - 402 entries

Create a column of all alphabet characters organized in a funky way

Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 526 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

Refactor typescript arrow function type - 295 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

Add string initializers to an enum - 834 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

xrandr outputs and dashes - 624 entries

uh oh, different video drivers identify display outputs with more dashes. Quick, need to change this xrandr script!

Arijus
Twitter:

Frontend @wix

entered into 103 challenges

contributed 5 challenges